Advances in the psychosocial treatment of anxiety disorders. Implications for national health care.

Recent developments in the psychosocial treatments for anxiety disorders suggest that we have reached an early plateau. Evidence now exists on the effectiveness of psychosocial treatment approaches for every anxiety disorder when compared with no treatment or credible psychosocial placebos. In many cases these procedures have limited clinical effectiveness and much remains to be learned about the disseminability and clinical utility of these approaches in the context of emerging national health care plans. We are just beginning the first generation of multisite studies examining the potentially synergistic effects of proven psychosocial treatments and proven drug treatments. These studies that have substantial significance for national health care are reviewed and some preliminary results are reported.